The Hot Seat: 'Once Upon a Time' bosses answer burning questions

As the race to track down the Snow Queen intensifies, new developments from Emma’s past have surfaced on Once Upon a Time—namely that the big bad was actually her foster mom at one point. But that’s far from the only mystery surrounding this season, which is why EW put executive producers Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis in The Hot Seat, where they have the option of answering your questions from Twitter with “Yes,” “No” or “Can’t say.” Get the scoop below:

Horowitz: First of all, she doesn’t know that Regina killed Graham. If you look back at season one, before Emma believed, when she talks to Henry (Jared Gilmore) about the aftermath of Graham’s death, she says what the autopsy was, which was an aneurysm. She still believes that.

Kitsis: She believed it at the time, and then things have happened.

Horowitz: She actually doesn’t know that Regina was behind it. That’s never been something that has come up. If it did, I’m sure she would take issue with it.

Will Regina use her light magic again?

Kitsis: I would hope so.

Is there a reason behind Regina’s magic being red?

Horowitz: She was angry at the snow monster.

Kitsis: Fire burns hot, and Regina’s got a lot of fire.

Will the search for the author lead Operation Mongoose outside of Storybrooke?

Horowitz: Yes.

Is future Henry the author of the book?

Kitsis: Not today.

Is Rumple’s (Robert Carlyle) behavior this season in any way related to his resurrection from the vault of the Dark One?

Kitsis: Absolutely, it is related to that. It is related to the fact that all of last season, he was a slave to the dagger under the control of the Wicked Witch (Rebecca Mader), thus reminding him how precious his life is. And it is related to this hat and what it can do for him. He is a man who has always chosen power over love, but this hat is a tantalizing thing for him that he thought he never thought he would be able to achieve. When he finds the hat in the premiere, you realize why he had to wake up in the middle of the night and do it, even though he just made a big declaration to be on the straight and narrow. For us, it was: What is this object? What is so important that would make him break that code literally the same night? It’s based on all these things we’ve just talked about.

Will we find out the significance of the honeymoon house and why Belle (Emilie de Ravin) found it?

Horowitz and Kitsis: Yes.

Outside of Sunday’s Belle-centric episode, will we see her mother (Frances O’Connor) again down the line?

Kitsis: Maybe.

Does Once’s current timeline take place after the events of Wonderland?

Horowitz: Yes.

Will we see the Red Queen (Emma Rigby) this season?

Kitsis: We’re going to try.

Will we see more of the missing year?

Horowitz: Yes.

Kitsis: But it may not be this season.

Will we ever see the repercussions of Snow (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Charming (Josh Dallas) sharing a heart?

Horowitz and Kitsis: Yes.

Will we find out if baby Neal has special powers, too?

Horowitz and Kitsis: Yes.

Will we ever see the Swan family and why they gave Emma back?

Kitsis: Potentially. Maybe.

Horowitz: More of Emma’s past is in the cards.

Will Emma and Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) take their relationship to the next level this season?

Horowitz: If by next level you mean going from Netflix to Hulu Plus, possibly.

Kitsis: Yes.

Will we ever see what dirty work Hook used to do for Peter Pan (Robbie Kay)?

Kitsis: Maybe.

Will we see Tinker Bell (Rose McIver) again?

Kitsis: Depends on her schedule.

Horowitz: We hope so.

Kitsis: She is the lead of her own show [The CW’s midseason entry iZombie], in which she’s in every scene. So although she is in the same city that we shoot, it’s very hard for her to have free time, but as soon as she does, we’ll put her back in her green outfit.

Will we see other villains besides Maleficent (Kristin Bauer van Straten) in the second half of the season?

Horowitz: I sure hope so.

Is there going to be a major character death this season?

Kitsis: I hope so.

Do you have your series end game planned?

Kitsis: Yes. We have had our series end game from when we created the series. We have a road map, and we’ve allowed ourselves a lot of freedom, but it was never our intention to say, “Here’s exactly what we’re going to do.” But we know where we’re leading to.

Horowitz: And if you’re asking whether we know what we’d like the last moment of the series to be, yes, we do.

Have questions for the Once bosses? Hit the comments below or send them to @NatalieAbrams with the hashtag #EWHotSeat.